Two Firsts for a Day!

Yesterday I had my first opportunity to work in the local Emergency room. It was a whole new world of medicine. Below you will see their "Pyxis" and pediatric nurse's station...quite far from anything you'd see in the US.  You can see that the majority of medications are supplied in glass ampules [these are rarely used in the US anymore], and there is no such thing as a filtered needle [Watch out for those dangerous glass shards!]. The picture doesn't show it, but the nurse's station was always crowded and a couple patients were usually lined up, waiting to be seen. Although you can see a computer is available, all charting is paper. Additionally, all seven patient beds were side by side. There were no curtains partitioning the rooms. All families were crowded in the same small space. Although not as chaotic as I would have expected, it certainly was not the ideal healing environment.

There were not many adult patients on this day, so I was able to work in the pediatric ward for the morning [ :) :) :)] I learned how to give a nebulizer treatment and administered this to a handful of children. Many come in with respiratory problems due to poor air quality here. There were a variety of cases otherwise, including a fractured rib, Hepatitis A and severe dehydration. At the end of the shift, Anne and I went around and gave stickers to all the children. It made their day!

My other first for the day was seeing the local market. Now this was chaotic! People everywhere. Vendors everywhere. Cars everywhere [Beep beep]. It was a lot to take in. Pick-pocketing is also prevalent so we had to be on watch. Last year, Dr. Weiss even had her earrings stolen off of her! Thankfully, we all left what we came with. This was another wonderful opportunity to spend time with my adopted family. I was able to buy them a large cylinder to store water and a blanket. They were incredibly appreciative!